For my final Sheriff event in London, I decided I'd go for an Arsenal deck as there was always the chance I'd do well and grab a win for the unloved home. Being me, I thought 'Nuns with Swords have been done before (and who cares if it works well!) - I'm going gadgets!', thus dealing that hope of victory a mortal blow before the first lowball hand was drawn :)

After tossing many ideas around, including Ballot Counter-centred builds and horse control/gadget hybrids, I settled on this one. Scientists with Bio-Charged Neutralizers, backed up by a bunch of high value stud dudes, Point Blank and Takin' Ya With Me. The (admittedly limited) testing I'd done showed it could put out a lot of hurt in a shootout, so I decided it was good to go. Another time and place, it'd probably have done a good job. As it happened though...

When we learned what factions were being played, and about half of them were Morgan Cattle Company, I began to feel that maybe I'd brought the wrong deck. I was expecting more aggro decks that would pick up bounties that I could take advantage of, and I didn't get them. While I still got some area control usage out of the Arsenal, the lack of in-deck bounty generation meant it was far less useful than it could have been as most of the decks I played were looking to avoid fighting as much as possible. I think I'd switch out some of my Eights for The Evidence if I played this deck again, as well as find a place for Ebenezer Springfield, to at least have some bounty generation. The times I did get into shootouts, the deck handled itself fine, usually getting me a legal full house or better.

I felt I ended up making more mistakes than usual (read: a lot!) - I lost count of the number of times I made a play or passed and then immediately thought of something better I could have done (this seems to be a thing for me at longer events). Developing a blind spot for California Tax Offices didn't do me any favours either.

Despite the doom-and-gloomy tone, I had some really good games. Only one win, but three very close games that ended as losses after tiebreaker rounds (and the first game where I completely forgot about Steele Archer's second Paralysis Mark and sent a hat-wearing Jake into the town square where he got booted and jumped on by everybody, losing me half my influence. Let's forget that one... :P)